How does Geraldine Brooks do it? Perfectly evoke a time and a place with such precisely chosen words? In Caleb's Crossing (#71) it's Martha's Vineyard in the mid 1600s. The eponymous Caleb is Caleb Cheeshahteaumauk, a Wampanoag Indian who is known to have graduated from Harvard College in 1665. That is almost all that is known about him, so Ms. Brooks has imagined how that might have come to be through a relationship with an English girl. Bethia Mayfield is the narrator of this tale and Martha's Vineyard is a wonderous place seen through her eyes in Caleb's company.
Caleb is tutored by the local minister, Bethia's father, along with her brother and another Indian scholar. When the boys go to the mainland to pursue their studies prior to entering Harvard, Bethia is indentured to the owner of the preparatory school in Cambridge in lieu of her brother's tuition by her skinflint grandfather.
The narrative is in three sections: the first set on Martha's Vineyard during Bethia's girlhood. This is the most lyrical section, and I almost wish that Ms. Brooks had stopped here. The second section deals with the years in Cambridge as Caleb studies and Bethia works out the terms of her indenture. The third section returns to Martha's Vineyard as Bethia looks back over her long life and jots down her final memories.
I couldn't put this book down. Ms. Brooks works her magic again.
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